FBI agent pulled from probe for anti-Trump texts
U.S. president on Flynn: ‘There was nothing to hide’
WASHINGTON — A veteran FBI counterintelligence agent was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian election meddling after the discovery of an exchange of anti-Trump text messages, a person familiar with the matter said Saturday.
The removal of the agent, who also had worked on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, occurred this summer. The person who discussed the matter with The Associated Press was not authorized to speak about it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, said Mueller removed the agent, Peter Strzok, from the team “immediately upon learning of the allegations.”
The swift removal undoubtedly reflected a desire to insulate the investigators from any claims of political bias or favouritism. President Donald Trump and many of his supporters have sought to discredit the investigation, in part by claiming a close relationship between Mueller and fired FBI Director James Comey and by pointing to political contributions to Democratic candidates made by some lawyers on the team.
The existence of the text messages was brought to the attention of Mueller’s office by the inspector general’s office, which has been conducting a wide-ranging investigation of the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email case.
Mueller has been investigating whether Trump campaign associates co-ordinated with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, and Strzok’s background in counterintelligence would have been seen as particularly valuable for a secretive FBI probe examining foreign contacts.
So far, four people have been charged as a result of Mueller’s investigation. The most recent charge occurred Friday when former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. He has agreed to co-operate with the investigation.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted that he “had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vice-president and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”
The tweet suggests that Trump was aware when he dismissed Flynn on Feb. 13 that he had lied to the FBI, which had interviewed him weeks earlier. Comey has said that Trump the following day brought up the Flynn investigation in private at the White House and told him that he hoped he could “let this go.”
The nature of the messages Strzok exchanged and with whom he communicated was not immediately clear. In his statement, Carr noted that an FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, had briefly been detailed to the team but left “before our office was aware of the allegations.”
Phone numbers for Strzok and Page could not immediately be found, and the FBI declined to comment.
The New York Times first reported the agent’s removal.
Strzok was present during Clinton’s July 2016 interview with the FBI about her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, according to an unclassified summary of the interview commonly referred to as an FBI 302 form. Several other FBI agents and officials from the Justice Department also attended. The investigation was concluded without criminal charges days later.
On Saturday, the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office released a statement confirming that it was continuing to review unspecified allegations made about the department’s and the FBI’s actions “in advance of the 2016 election.”
“The [Office of Inspector General] has been reviewing allegations involving communications between certain individuals, and will report its findings regarding those allegations promptly upon completion of the review of them,” the office said.
The statement didn’t refer to any agents or officials by name.
NEW YORK — Brushing aside an ongoing Russia probe, U.S. President Donald Trump revelled Saturday in the Senate’s passage of a sweeping tax bill, predicting with swagger that he and his fellow Republicans were “unbeatable.”
Trump swept into his hometown on a $6 million US fundraising blitz, a day after former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and promised co-operation with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The president told reporters there was “no collusion” between his campaign and the Russians, then tweeted, “nothing to hide!” He said he “had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vicepresident and the FBI” and defended Flynn’s actions during the presidential transition as lawful.
The tax legislation now goes to a House-Senate committee, which will try to reconcile the versions passed by each chamber. “Something beautiful is going to come out of that mixer,” Trump said. “People are going to be very, very happy.”
After landing in New York City, Trump’s motorcade drove near several hundred protesters decrying the tax bill and his administration’s entanglement in the Russia probe. But inside a large event space in Cipriani, where a large Christmas tree stood nearby, the president turned nostalgic about the 2016 election and recalled that few people expected him to notch the required 270 electoral votes to claim the White House.
Looking ahead, the president boasted that Democrats’ prospects in 2020 looked bleak.
“Unless they have somebody that we don’t know about, right now we’re unbeatable. We’re unbeatable,” Trump said. “And one of the reasons is what’s happening with the markets, what’s happening with business, what’s happening with jobs.”
The president noted that the Senate’s nearly $1.5 trillion tax overhaul passed with only Republican votes and predicted that Democrats would regret their opposition. “That’s going to cost them very big in the election,” he said. “Because basically they voted against tax cuts and I don’t think politically it’s good to vote against tax cuts.”
Trump was attending three fundraising events in New York that were expected to raise $6 million for Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee between the president’s campaign and the Republican National Committee.